The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Helleborus that is grown for use as an ornamental plant for the garden and landscape. The new cultivar is known botanically as Helleborus hybrid and will be referred to hereinafter by the cultivar name ‘Walhero’.
‘Walhero’ resulted from a breeding program that was established by the inventor in 1980 in a cultivated area of Sussex, England. The purpose of the breeding program is to produce new Helleborus plants exhibiting vigorous growth rates and attractive well-presented flowers. ‘Walhero’ is a hybrid plant that was selected by the inventor in 2002 for its combination of commercially useful characteristics, including plant form and vigor, crop uniformity, and attractive large nearly flat pink flowers.
Commencing in 1980, the inventor began to assemble a large collection of Helleborus plants by raising and crossing promising seedlings. In particular, the inventor included selected seedlings of Helleborus niger ‘Potter's Wheel’ strain (unpatented) which the inventor regarded as having desirable characteristics of vigor, form and presentation of flowers, and these were crossed with selected seedlings of the species Helleborus orientalis. Seedlings which resulted from each year's hybridizations were grown to first or second year flowering, and a select number were retained for longer term evaluation. All seedlings were raised and grown on for evaluation and eventual selection in an unheated greenhouse at the inventor's nursery in Sussex, England. The inventor selected ‘Walhero’ from this population in 2002.
‘Walhero’ is a perennial plant that exhibits vigorous upright growth, large pink flowers and medium-green leaves. The distinguishing characteristics that make ‘Walhero’ unique are crop uniformity, vigorous upright growth, prolific flowering and well presented large, saucer-shaped, mid to dark pink flowers that have not been observed to set seed.
The parents of ‘Walhero’ were an unnamed and unreleased seedling which bore the large white open-faced flowers which are characteristic of Helleborus niger ‘Potter's Wheel’ strain, and an unnamed and unreleased seedling of the species Helleborus orientalis which bore light to mid pink colored flowers of average size (diameter approximately 7 cm). By comparison with its parents, ‘Walhero’ is more vigorous and produces many more flowers whose size, shape and color combine the large open-faced flowers of the ‘Potter's Wheel’ strain parent with larger and deeper pink colored flowers than the chosen Helleborus orientalis parent.
The closest comparison plants in commerce, known to the inventor, are pink-flowered seedling forms of Helleborus orientalis and the pinker selections of the normally white Helleborus niger. 
Walhero is distinguishable from such plants by its vigorous growth, its upright flower stems, its earliness, and its large flowers borne prolifically which are held in a more upright position and are distinctly pink in color throughout its period of flowering.
The first asexual propagation was accomplished by the inventor in 2003 in a cultivated area of Sussex, England. Asexual propagation of the new cultivar ‘Walhero’ was conducted by the inventor using the method of tissue culture. The unique features of ‘Walhero’ proved stable and the plant reproduces true to type in successive generations of asexual propagation.